Tuesday, November 15, 2011

CHAPEL HILL -- A police tactical team of more than 25 police officersarrested eight demonstrators Sunday afternoon and charged them withbreaking and entering for occupying a vacant car dealership on FranklinStreet.

Officers brandishing guns and semi-automatic rifles rushed the building atabout 4:30 p.m. They pointed weapons at those standing outside, andordered them to put their faces on the ground. They surrounded thebuilding and cleared out those who were inside.

About 13 people, including New & Observer staff writer covering thedemonstration, were forced to the ground and hand-cuffed.Click here to find out more!

Those who had been outside of the building at the time of the arrests -including N&O staffer Katelyn Ferral - were detained and then let go aftertheir pictures were taken. Eight people inside the building were cuffedand put on a Chapel Hill Transit bus to be taken to the police station tobe charged with misdemeanor breaking and entering.

"Along with facilitating citizens' ability to exercise theirconstitutional rights, it is also a critical responsibility of all levelsof government in a free society to respond when rights of others are beingimpinged upon," Chapel Hill Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt said in a statementissued Sunday night.

"This weekend a group of protesters broke into and entered a privatelyowned building in downtown Chapel Hill. ... The Town has an obligation tothe property owners, and the Town will enforce those rights ..."

Police closed off four blocks of West Franklin Street with six squad carsand a fire truck while officers removed signs the demonstrators had hungin the former dealership's show room windows.

In a statement Sunday night, police said they had been monitoring thebuilding since Saturday night when they learned attendees of an anarchistbook fair held this weekend were aligning themselves with Occupy ChapelHill and that about 70 people had entered the former car dealership.

"Officers also learned that strategies used by anarchists in othercommunities included barricading themselves in buildings, placing traps inbuildings, and otherwise destroying property," said the statement releasedby Sgt. Josh Mecimore. "The group in the ... building used large bannersto obscure the windows to the business and strategically placed members onthe roof as look-outs."

Police waited until the crowd had reached "a manageable size" beforemoving in Sunday, the statement said.

A crowd of between 50 and 75 people gathered across the street, watchingand taking pictures as the bus carrying the protesters pulled away. Theyjeered police officers, chanting, "Shame! Shame! Shame!" When someonenoticed the Wells Fargo advertisement on the side of the bus, they beganchanting "Who do they serve? Wells

The group, who identified themselves as "anti-capitalist occupiers" movedinto the former University Chrysler and Yates Motor Co. building at 419 W.Franklin St. on Saturday night, the police statement said.

The brick and cinderblock building with large windows fronting thesidewalk is owned by out-of-town businessman Joe Riddle and has stoodempty for many years. One demonstrator said they were acting in thetradition of working-class squatters' movements around the world that somesay inspired the Occupy Wall Street movement and its offshoots across theUnited States.

The group printed a flier that proposed a possible new use for the spacethat would include a free clinic, kitchen, child care, library anddormitories, among other uses. The flier acknowledged they were breakingthe law by entering the building.

"Make no mistake: this occupation is illegal," it said, "as are most ofthe other occupations taking place around the U.S., as were many of theother acts of defiance that won the little freedom and equality weappreciate today."

THIS BUILDING IS OURS! Chapel Hill Anarchists Occupy Downtown Building

In the midst of the first general strike to hit the US since 1946, a groupof comrades occupied a vacant building in downtown Oakland, CA. Beforebeing brutally evicted and attacked by cops, they taped up in the window alarge banner declaring, “Occupy Everything…”

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Last night, at about 8pm, a group of about 50 – 75 people occupied the10,000 square foot Chrysler Building on the main street of downtownChapel Hill. Notorious for having an owner who hates the city and has badrelations with the City Council, the giant building has sat empty for tenyears. It is empty no longer.

Following the Carrboro Anarchist Bookfair, a group “in solidarity withoccupations everywhere” marched to the building, amassing outside whilebanners reading “Occupy Everything” and “Capitalism left this building forDEAD, we brought it back to LIFE” were raised in the windows and lowereddown the steep roof. Much of the crowd soon filed in through one of thegarage door entrances to find a short film playing on the wall and dancemusic blasting.

People explored the gigantic building, and danced in the front room toimages of comrades shattering the glass of bank windows 3,000 miles awayin Oakland. Others continued to stay outside, shouting chants, givingspeeches, and passing out hundreds of “Welcome” packets (complete with oneamong many possible future blueprints for the building – see below fortext) to passersby. The text declared the initial occupation to be thework of “ autonomous anti-capitalist occupiers,” rather than Occupy ChapelHill, but last evening’s events have already drawn the involvement of manyOccupy Chapel Hill participants, who are camped just several blocks downthe street.

Soon several police showed up, perhaps confused and waiting for orders.Three briefly entered the building, and were met with chants of “ACAB!”Strangely, the cops seem to have been called off, because they left asquick as they came. For the rest of the night they were conspicuouslyabsent, leaving us free to conduct a short assembly as to what to do withthe space and how to hold it for the near future. The group also decidedto move a nearby noise and experimental art show into the building. Assome folks began to arrange the show, others began filtering across townseeking things we needed for the night.

Within 30 minutes of the assembly ending, trucks began returning witheverything from wooden pallets, doors, water jugs, and a desk, to amassive display case for an already growing distro and pots and trays offood donated by a nearby Indian restaurant. Others began spreading theword to the nearby Occupy Chapel Hill campsite, and bringing their campinggear into the building.

Over the next few hours more and more community members heard about theoccupation and stopped by, some to bring food or other items, others justto soak it all in. All the while dozens of conversations were happeningoutside with people on the street. The show began eventually, and abrasivenoise shook the walls of the building, interspersed with dance music andconversations, and ending with a beautiful a capella performance, and ofcourse more dancing.

More events are to follow tomorrow in our new space, with two assembliesfrom the anarchist bookfair being moved to the new location, and a yogateacher offering to teach a free class later in the afternoon.

As of the early hours this Sunday morning, the building remains in ourhands, with a small black flag hanging over the front door. The first 48hours will be extremely touch and go, but with a little luck, and a lot ofpublic support, we aim to hold it in perpetuity. Regardless, we hope thatthis occupation can inspire others around the country. Strikes like theone in Oakland present one way forward; long term building occupations maypresent another.

-some anti-capitalist occupiers

TEXT FROM THE “WELCOME” HANDOUT:

We would like to welcome you to an experiment.

For the past month and a half, thousands of people all over the US havebeen occupying public space in protest of economic inequality andhopelessness. This itself began as an experiment in a small park in NewYork City, though it did not emerge out of a vacuum: Occupy Wall St. “madesense” because of the rebels of Cairo, because of the indignados of Madridand Barcelona and Athens. All of these rebellions were experiments inself-organization which emerged out of their own specific contexts, theirown histories of struggle and revolution. Each were unique, but alsounited by the shared reality of the failure and decline of late globalcapitalism, and the futility of electoral politics.

Recently, this “Occupy” phenomenon has expanded beyond merely “providing aspace for dialogue” to become a diverse movement actively seeking to shiftthe social terrain. From strikes and building occupations to marches andport blockades, this looks different in different places, as it should,but one thing is clear: Many are no longer content with “speaking truth topower,” for they understand that power does not listen.

Toward that end, we offer this building occupation as an experiment, as apossible way forward. For decades, occupied buildings have been afoundation for social movements around the world. In places as diverse asBrazil, South Africa, Spain, Mexico, and Germany, just to mention a few,they offer free spaces for everything from health clinics and daycare tourban gardening, theaters, and radical libraries. They are reclaimedspaces, taken back from wealthy landowners or slumlords, offered to thecommunity as liberated space.

All across the US thousands upon thousands of commercial and residentialspaces sit empty while more and more people are forced to sleep in thestreets, or driven deep into poverty while trying to pay rent thatincreases without end. Chapel Hill is no different: this building has satempty for years, gathering dust and equity for a lazy landlord hundreds ofmiles away, while rents in our town skyrocket beyond any service workers’ability to pay them, while the homeless spend their nights in the cold,while gentrification makes profits for developers right up the street.

For these reasons, we see this occupation as a logical next step, bothspecific to the rent crisis in this city as well as generally foroccupations nationwide. This is not an action orchestrated by OccupyChapel Hill, but we invite any and all occupiers, workers, unemployed, orhomeless folks to join us in figuring out what this space could be. Weoffer this “tour guide” merely as one possible blueprint among many, forthe purpose of brainstorming the hundreds of uses to which such a buildingcould be put to once freed from the stranglehold of rent.

Break the Chains.info

is a news and discussion forum for supporters of political prisoners, prisoners of war, politicized social prisoners, and victims of police and state intimidation.

This blog is organized and updated autonomously of the disbanded Break the Chains Prisoner Support Network formerly based in Eugene, Oregon. While this online project shares several of the same concerns as the old Break the Chains collective, no formal organization exists behind the current web presence.

"I will never surrender my pride and dignity nor allow the system to 'cut my tongue' and I will always, without fear, speak out against these war crimes and crimes against humanity, no matter if I spend the rest of my life in a prison cage, and draw my last breath of air laying down in this steel bed surrounded by razor-wire fences and cages, and its prison policies that are designed to destroy one's humanity…."